Earlier, I wrote briefly about how MS Word has some built in features that could be used by writers to their benefit without any additional costs or effort, since the features were built in. Here, I continue the freebie discussion to cover styles and templates and macros.

Styles and templates are essentially encapsulated formatting descriptions. Where templates define how the page and overall document looks and feels, styles are used for defining either paragraphs or individual characters. You can pre-define a paragraph format with specific margins, font conditions, spacing etc., and character styles for font face and size, any additional attributes like superscript, subscript, etc. You can also “overlay” a paragraph style with a character style for added punch. You're asking yourself why bother, right? Your manuscript has basic formatting: headers, footers, margins, font face and size. And in the places you have a character’s thoughts, or songs, or any other changed format, you've simply altered the indentation and/or look of the text. What if you want to change it after a run through with a proofreader or your editor, though? What if you like to write at 14 pt. Courier font with single spacing on your paragraphs, but your proofer needs 12 pt., Garamond, double spacing with gaps between paragraphs, and larger margins for notes? What if the final output format is to be a completely different page size, with different margins, font faces and sizes? If the transitions from one to the other were accomplished with a few clicks, would the bother be worth it?

Styles:

The process of assigning styles and templates sounds horribly labor-intensive and time-consuming. But, using styles (and templates) can make it all much easier and more manageable. How?

First define your paragraph and character styles and use them while writing your opus. When needed, click the style name to apply, or set a keyboard shortcut to do it, and keep typing. If you need to change the style after 100 pages, all you need to do is redefine it in one place, and with a mouse click, all instances in the document can be instantly updated. No searching and replacing; no muss, no fuss.

How else can you use styles? You can apply character styles to the characters' names (and automatically insert the already-styled text with autotext) so finding variations on a character (e.g., nicknames, possessives, etc.) can be a matter of searching your document for the style, not the many possible variations on the text itself.

So, generally speaking, using paragraph and character styles handles the working manuscript nicely. What about when you hand it off to others who require a different look and feel? That’s where templates come in to play.

Templates:

To make the whole document look different is have a different template, (obviously) - but here's the kicker - with the same paragraph and character style names. That doesn't mean the same style definitions, just the same style names.

In your other template, the same name can have a completely different look and feel, and when that template is attached to your document, every place in the document that has an applied style will take on the attribute of the new definition. Pretty sweet.

For example, you had styled thought bubble paragraphs in your working manuscript as an +1" left and right margins, Italics font. Cleverly, you named the style "ThoughtBubble" and off you went. Your editor absolutely despises italics, so, in order to appease her and so she doesn't go all Red Pen on you, you want thought bubbles to be double underlined and not italics. What you do is create the paragraph style in a different template with double underline, and name it "ThoughtBubble" in that template too.

When you attach the Editor Template to your document, all instances of "ThoughtBubble" are now double underlined with nary an Italics character in sight. Editor: appeased.

Macros:

Macros are probably the least understood and most powerful tool in your belt simultaneously. To a non-techie, a macro is a scary thing that can eat your document, reformat your hard drive and shave your cat, just by looking at it wrong. To the programmer, they are easily dismissed as "just macros - not a real programming language."

Fortunately, both views are incorrect.

You can use macros to automate mundane repetitive tasks so they can be accomplished with a simple keystroke or by assigning it an icon on the Quick Access toolbar. Here is a good tutorial on how to record and save a macro. Specifically what tasks should you think about processing through a macro? Any task that you have to do multiple times through multiple documents that takes multiple steps. What actions are those for you? I don't know, since everyone is different and their processes are different as well. My personal metric to determine if something is macro-worthy is if it meets the following criteria:

I have to do something more than three times;

I will likely have to do it again at a later date;

It takes more than a single change in a dialog box.

If it meets those, I create a macro. It ensures the same result every time I have to do it, and I don't have to remember any settings. What can I say? I'm lazy.

Got your attention with that magic word "Free" didn't I? I did use an asterisk, and since you are already here, please! read on.

I've been in contact with actual published authors recently. Once I got over the celebrity worship and envy, I wondered about the tools they use to get their thoughts down. This might be why I never quite get around to writing; I often get caught up in the what and how of the mechanics, rather than the actual doing. I also know that it is the truly rare and gifted writer that makes actual money from their efforts, and anything that can save money is a Good Thing.

I am rather familiar with word processing tools, after having written code-based document management systems embedded within the word processor itself, plus years and years of experience formatting document types to exacting specifications. You see, I am essentially lazy – as are most programmers – and instead of doing something repeatedly, I'll figure a way for the computer to do it for me. I leverage many of the existing tools in my work; it's easier than coding a function from scratch (again, I'm lazy) and there are a number of built-in features in most major word processors that – right out of the box – can greatly assist a writer in not only creating consistent format but consistent content as well.

Since you've probably already forked out some money for the word processor (I say probably, because OpenOffice is free), here are some tips to get the word processor to do more of the work, making the tools themselves free. See how I did that?

I discuss primarily MS Word tools for a couple of reasons: (1) It's what I am using now, and (2) it's common, but these same features are found in OpenOffice and likely in most other major word processors as well, regardless of the platform. Let the easing of the wordsmithing process begin!

AutoCorrect:

This function in word processors automatically corrects commonly misspelled words. If that weren't valuable enough, it can also be customized to correct intentionally entered gibberish into a meaningful word, phrase or even a sentence unique to your working environment.

For example you are working on your military thriller, and one of your characters is Master Gunnery Sergeant Bustamonte-Lopez. Due to the nature of your manuscript, you need to have his title often in the document. Sure, you can type it in each time, or you can even copy and paste. Though each time you use a copy function for something else, you have to either type it again, or hunt it down to copy again.

Or, you can set up an AutoCorrect entry. To do that, you would first identify the trigger text - the equivalent of a misspelled word - say "mgst." Then, you would also identify the full title and name that you want it to be corrected to: "Master Gunnery Sergeant Bustamonte-Lopez." Lock in the correction, and the next time in your document you type "mgst" and press the spacebar, the character's full name and title is entered. Pretty handy. This can work to expand your trigger to any word, phrase or sentence.

NOTE: It's probably not a good idea to use a real word as your trigger, just in case you need to use that word and don't want it always automatically corrected to your expanded form.

If you need more or totally need your trigger to be a real word not to be automatically corrected , read on about AutoText.

AutoText:

AutoText entries are somewhat similar to autocorrect with some significant added functionality – kind of like making them AutoCorrect’s bigger and much badder brother. In fact, you can bypass using autocorrect entirely and any of the entries you would have made using the autocorrect function instead. AutoText has a number of functionality advantages over autocorrect:

It can encompass multiple paragraphs, varying textual formats, even section breaks. Essentially, anything you can put into your manuscript, you can replicate with a simple set of keystrokes.

You can use any text as a trigger for creating the text: you are not limited to code words since inserting the AutoText entry requires a specific trigger action (in Word, it’s pressing the F3 key).

AutoText triggers can be saved with the current manuscript, or saved globally for use with any future document.

You can use it to create page layout changes on the fly, for example if you need to alter from portrait to landscape for an illustration and back. Oh, and have the font size and paragraph formatting different in the altered page. You can repeat the process of establishing the necessary breaks, and formatting, or you can do it once, save it as an AutoText entry, and re-use with only a few keystrokes. The hardest part is creating your block of formatted text - which you have to do anyway. Save it as an AutoText entry and you’re Ready to Rumble™ to use it again and again.

Example: I used MS Word as a report generator for SQL database queries. (There, I just lost two of my now three regular readers.) Depending on the data I returned, I needed to have a differently formatted document, combining font names, sizes and table shape. Instead of using multiple templates (to be discussed later), I created the different configurations ahead of time, and saved them as AutoText entries. Then, when the user needed to create the report, using a macro (also to be discussed later) the fully formatted AutoText configuration is placed in the document and filled with the query results. Probably far more complicated than will commonly be used, but a illustrative example of what can be done.

That should give you a couple of ideas about how you can more effectively use your creative time writing, instead of typing. Next up: styles, templates and *gasp* macros.